June, Richard was travelling for business passing through Dubai.
He would be staying in Dubai for a few days and we invited him to come and stay with us.

He had to do business as said, but there was also time to enjoy a bbq at the beach.
After not too long also Lykke joined us who was also visiting Dubai for business, Hans had met him for business earlier that week and invited him to come over and join us for the bbq and swim.
And later that evening Ward joined us as well, so it became a nice evening at the beach.

Since Richard was in Dubai anyway he defenitely wanted to go up the Burj Khalifa. Hans and I never went up before either, so I called the booking service, but seemingly there was no need to book in advance.

I must admit that the entrance and the way up in the elevator was quit nice.

We were not very lucky with the clarity of the sky though, it was kind of hazy and that made the view less interesting, but nevertheless, it was fun being up there. At least I can say I have been up there )

 
hmm…. nice, but still can't see the end of the tower.

I kneeled down

After spending more than an hour up in the Khalifa we went down with the escalator heading for the mall. Adearest has built a project for Penguins in the Zoo of the mall and we wanted to see that of course.

So there is the aquarium in the Dubai Mall and upstairs from that you will find a small, but very interesting Zoo, the set up is really nice!

(Stonefish, Piranha, Lionfish and Yelleyfish)

We got to the penguins where Hans with Adearest build the Ice, looks quit nice though.

                 Men will never grow up )))

 
           A diver feeding the fish in the aquarium

After strolling around in the Mall we went to Burj Khalifa again to get as close as we could to take pictures.

And up to the Belgium Beer Bar to watch some football. (Yes I know, it's been almost 7 months ago……..)

From the Belgium Beer Bar you'll have this view of the Business Bay Bridge with the Garhoud Bridge in the background.

In May Lois and Max visited us in Dubai again. We went swimming, shopping etc..
Lois really wanted to do the boattrip in Musandam again and we decided to stay overnight camping, something we did not do with them before.

I arranged the boat for us for a 4 hours tour through the Fjords of Oman.
 

The road to Khasab, where you will get on board of the dhow, is very beautiful, a mountain road along the coast.

Cormorants in large numbers.

 
One of the attractions of the boattrip is the dolphins, they are always there, but not a guarantee to actually see them. But we did see them again, not too many, but the dolphins were swimming with us along the boat. They are such a lovely creatures.

We always stop somewhere inside the Fjords to have a swim or snorkle, the dhow always has snorkle equipment on board.

 
There are a few small villages inside the Fjords and their main activity is fishing, so along the trip you pass quit some fishermen.

 
While sailing you will find a lot of Cormorants sunbathing at the rocks.

 
We were lucky to see another group of Humpback Dolphins a little further down the fjords.

After our 4 hours boattrip we went shopping in Khasab for our BBQ and drove to the 'Acacia Forest' to put up our camp for the night. Lois and I prepared everything for the BBQ while Hans and Max were gathering dead branches and wood for our fire place.

  
The night fell and we had our BBQ. Within just minutes it started crawling with insects, Caterpillars, Ants, Spiders and many more insects. The Caterpillars were actually very annoying, falling out of the trees right on top of you and it was not just one, but they came falling out of the tree in large numbers.
We moved the table and got rid of the caterpillars, but the spiders and other strange insect kept coming so Lois and I kept our feet up high all night ))

Just some pictures to create the ambiance.

In spite of all the instects we had a very cosy night, at the Acacia Forest where the only thing you'll hear is the crickets and the goats.

We were all quit tired, Musandam-Khasab is a 3 hours drive and we had to catch the dhow at 10.00hrs, so we had to wake up early, Max and Lois in a tent next to Hans and mine.

We placed the tents under the trees sothat we would not wake up swimming out of our tents because of the sun. And again there were the caterpillars, falling on our tents in large numbers.
 
But this was not the worst thing…. after already 15 minutes I heard Max and Lois complain about the heat in the tent and Hans and I too were horribly sweating.
I remember I was counting till 10 trying to relax as it was so extremely hot I couldn't breath.
I was lucky I was already laying down otherwise I would have fainted ))
 
After 10 minutes Hans decided to take of the outer cover of the tent to catch all the fresh air we could get.
We finally fell asleep, but next morning all of us were broken because of the bad night.

  While we were busy waking up from this bad night sleep the goats came visiting us again, there was this one cute lam and we gave it some dry bread.

It was absolutely nice waking up with all the goats around keeping you company  

Over all we had a good time and we promissed Lois and Max to do it again at a different time and place.

Before driving back to Dubai we had a small tour up the mountains. But since all of us had  a terrible night we were all quit tired and went back to Dubai.

Oooppsss! 4 months since the last update….. But I am back and I hope to update the weblog more often from now on… inshallah…

One of the reasons for the delay is I am creating another website, www.priscillaVA.com, which is now online however still under construction, I am not yet satisfied about the lay out and design and some links are not working properly due to some mail function in the software I am using.

Anyway, I will start my update where I left off. First I will finish the visitors updates, starting with my sister who visited again last April.

Initially she would be coming Friday the 16th of April, but also her flight got cancelled because of the smoke cloud we all know about. Many people got stranded back then. But finally she got her flight exactly one week later.

In the weekend we drove her around in the mountains of Oman.

I know you must be thinking this is boring, again driving to Hatta and Ray, but it is one of the most beautiful mountain areas, sometimes very exciting after the rain, with the flooded wadis. Visitors are always enjoying this tour. And almost every time you will find new subjects to photograph…

…like this cloud…

or people who believe they can go off road with their Kia…

              or men taking showers in the wadis.

It was a great day and Felicity seemed to enjoy it too. We finished our trip at the Hatta Fort Hotel where we had a drink and diner.

Next day we had a dune bash trip on the agenda. Linda, Ward, Cor, Engelien, Felicity, Hans and myself of course . I did not make any photos that day, in the end the dune bash photos end up all being the same, right? The only photo I took was the one with the wrecked car, I love this kind of images.

Next day Hans had to go to work and Felicity and I planned to go to Sharjah.
At the time Hans and I lived in Sharjah they were doing some serious renovating at the Qanat al Qasba. So we never saw it finished until I went there for lunch with Felicity. They have really done a very nice job, they also renamed it, now they only call it Al Qasba.
A lovely place for lunch… or diner!!

Next day we drove to Khutwa. I have never seen a more beautiful oasis then Khutwa. It just has it all, the small village, the awesome canyon and of course it's lovely oasis.

            I have no clue of what this is, I'd never
            seen this 'seed' before, but I thought
            it was nice

If you want to get out of the crowded city looking for a quiet place to have a picnic this is really the right place for it (but: don't leave your belongings in the car).

My sister and I had a nice week, we had been touring through the Emirates and of course I had to introduce her the recently opened shopping malls.

Before she went back to Holland we did one more tour through the desert, not off track as we did not want to risk getting stuck in the middle of nowhere.

We passed some farms with goats and cows, yes we do have cows here, not as many as you see them in Holland, but cows are held for their milk mainly.
This cow is eating from a National Paint bucket )

Donkeys can be found anywhere, usually close to farms or in the mountains. These donkeys are living in the wild and therefor very shy.
This male is protecting the females and their young and as soon he saw us coming they ran off.

Goats are everywhere in this country, they are owned by farmers, but during the day they are free to grub. Some of the goats are really beautiful.

So it was the end of my sister's holiday and we had a good time together, shopping, chatting, touring and of course a lot of BBQ at night.
This was the 2nd she visited us and I hope to see her again next year here in Dubai.

Rene and Linda both had their parents (Linda's parents were with 4 persons, including their friends) visiting them in Dubai and Felicity, my sis, was also coming to visit us some days later.
Of course a desert trip was sceduled during the weekend, we went with 4 cars, 11 persons. Ward was on a business trip so Linda was driving their car and Engelien had to stay home as it is not recommendable for her to go dune bashing her being pregnant.
  

Well as you know, getting stuck is part of the game, no sweat

Cor you really need to loose weight now, the shorts are getting to small for you…

We had a terrific ride until…. Rene started loosing his tyres… ))
They succeeded putting the tyres back, but after 2 mintures they lost all the air again.
So unfortunately we had to stop our tour, but luckily we had been driving already for a couple of hours.

With the entire club we decided to have a bbq at our place, the ladies went of to the supermarket to do the groceries while the men sat in the garden chatting and enjoying a glass of beer.In the meantime Engelien took a taxi and joined us. It was very cosy and after such an excting day out in the desert always lovely to review the events of the day.

             
Full house!
      

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Allthough Linda and Rene had family and friends to visit they still need to work. I promissed them to go out for a day tour and we'd agreed to visit Sharjah, away from the extreme luxurious Dubai and make it a cultural day.
  

Specially for the ladies we started at the Blue Souq, did 2.5 hours of shopping in a real traditional souq.
The Blue Souq will close at 13.30hrs, well most of the shops anyway, and shopping makes you hungry and thirsty. Straight from the Blue Souq we headed for Al Qasba in Sharjah, they have done some very nice renovations to the place and created a boulevard with many good restaurants. So, it was time to have lunch at Al Qasba.
        

After our wonderful lunch with fresh drinks we moved on to the Heritage Village of Sharjah. Unfortunately, still after the years of renovation, still very passive, but it can be nice to stroll through the streets, visit the small museums and beautiful Souq Al Arsa.

The Iranian Mosque, which is visible from the Creek as well as at the background from the Heritage Village, is very beautifully decorated.

It had been a few years ago since I had been in the Heritage Village due to the huge traffic problems in Sharjah. But so far we had no problems getting into Sharjah, it is clear a lot of expats must have left the country.
     
In the Heritage you hardly couldn't find any other living creature except for a donkey, camel and a dog, meaning there was no activity at all except for a hand full of employees of the village.
I was told this was a Salukki and Yvonne loves Salukkis, so I took a few photos to for her

This boy was very happy to pose for us, a funny and friendly boy      

So and now it is your turn to pose for the photo too.   
         

It was getting late and at some point everyone was getting tired, we had walked around all day, so we deciced to get back to Dubai. We had a wonderful day in Sharjah and I really enjoyed driving them around in Sharjah.

While walking back to the car, crossing the road, we saw some men sitting on the strip between the lanes playing cards. It was amusing to watch them playing and taking pictures of the men playing was no problem.

……………………………………………………………………

A weekend later we went dune bashing again with Ward, Linda's father and Cor while the ladies were having a day at the Spa.  

Oops Hans got stuck on top op a dune, but what a nice action!!!!

It is very obvious who are the Scuba divers The men seem to have fun.

My sister was supposed to fly to Dubai mid April. Exactly at the time the Vulcano in Iceland created the clouds over Europe. As you know lots of travellers got stuck at the airports or in their hotels not able to travel to their destinations. This also happened to Felicity, in the end she arrived a week later in Dubai.
Linda and Rene's parents also had to stay longer in Dubai than planned.
      

Next time they'll visit Dubai it will be my pleasure guiding them around again!!

Marco came to Dubai again in March, staying with us in Mirdif. He had some business he needed to finish and the first days I spent with him driving through Dubai, visiting the business people he met the first time he visited Dubai.

I thought it was very interesting visiting the Maserati dealer and the Auto Market in Ras al Khor.
All the fancy and expensive cars were quit impressive and Marco explained to me how to discover previous repaired damages on a car.
When Hans came home from work he had to listen to all of my exciting stories about all the hot cars I had seen and begged him for a Bentley )))

  
After a couple of days a friend of Marco, Gerard, joined us, we made plans for driving the desert again
On a Friday morning we hit the sand, Marco and Gerard rented an FJ Cruiser. Unfortunately no one else was able to join us, thus we took the Isuzu, Hans' Land Cruiser and the FJ Cruiser.

The first who got stuck was Gerard

 
The second one who got stuck was Hans
But, a little afraid for damages to the Land Cruiser, Hans parked the car along the dunes and we moved on with the Isuzu and the FJ only.

Usually I am the one taking lots of photos, but after this photo I gave the camera to Marco and let him do the rest of all the shooting

On top of the famous enormous dune again, where the locals gave us a good dune bash show.

On top of that same dune was a group of quad bikers, They asked me if I'd like to have a ride with them… thanks, but no thanks But Gerard didn't hesitate at all and climbed on the quad.

The guy with Gerard at the back was driving like crazy, for us on top of the dune a lot of fun to watch… ))

During the day Marco and Gerard did their own thing, handling their business and at the evenings we went out or had a bbq in our garden. One night, their last night in Dubai, we had diner together at the Hyatt Park at one of the many lovely restaurants.

Ahhhh what a lovely couple

 
Check the photo with Marco…. the first day he arrived in Dubai we also done a little shopping, he broke his specs and needed a new one. On our way through the mall we stopped at the men's fashion store, Bugatti, it was the end-of-season-sale and Marco bought a few blouses. He wore one of blouses that night at the Hyatt Park and he did not remove, on purpose, the tag from the new blouse ))))) LOL

Ahh and who is this lovely couple than…?

A few days after Marco and Gerard went back to Holland I got this photo sent by email from Yvonne and Marco, they had done some changes on the original in Photoshop )))) I bet they had big fun while doing this